The Hardest Thing
by Rjalker
Summary: Buffy realizes something that almost breaks her. Early Season Six. Inspired by a tree. Sets the stage for Running.


** The Hardest Thing**

**An Early Season Six One-shot**

**Created on 10/4/12, 2:55pm**

**Okay, the inspiration for this one came from my little oak tree that I've been growing in a pot since April of…last year? (I think so…the moving of houses has got me all mixed up) We just moved, and I saw it on the back porch today, and its leaves are starting to turn brown because my mom put it in a corner where there is no sunlight, so I moved it to where there was sunlight and said to it, "There. Live." Of course, in my head, I completed the sentence with "for me." Then I thought, "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it", which turned into "The Hardest Thing" which sounded pretty cool as a title for a story, and then I started coming up with ideas for what could happen in a story with that name…Aaaand….this is it.**

**The tree (it's only about a foot tall, and hardly wider than a twig, poor thing) is now in my room, in the window. I woke up this morning and saw that one of its leaves fell off :( Now it's only got 11 of them. And IT WAS BEING EATEN! There are holes in its leaves! Bugs were eating my poor little tree! I'm never letting my mom decide where it goes, ever again! She's got tons of plants! I grew it from an acorn! It will not die! I won't let it!**

**Lol. Ignore my craziness.**

**Please.**

**Enjoy =)**

**10/12/12, 2:02 PM: And god dang it, we're down to 10/12 leaves! I got the idea in my head that at the end of this story Buffy would plant an acorn, leave it, and tell herself that she would come back in a month, and if it could survive, then so could she! And now I can't stop thinking about it in that way! If that tree dies then so does she! CRAAAAAP! **

**EVERYONE! Pray to whatever gods you believe in that that little tree doesn't die! **

**10/15/12: Yet another leaf has fallen. **

**10/16/12: 11:14pm. And another leaf fell off.**

**10/22/12: aaand, the final brown leaf has fallen. Hopefully it will get better now.**

**Live, tree, for me!**

**11/3/12: Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeeee, happy birthday to me ^^**

**( ^ And now I can't stop thinking of _Nothing_ by secooper87 o.O READ IT!)**

**(My birthday was yesterday, and I decided I would finish one of my stories as a present to myself [and Running is gonna take a little longer, so I decided to finish this one])**

* * *

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

She'd spoken those words, just a few months ago. It seemed like forever had passed. And yet, still, they rang true. Truer than she could have ever thought possible. Truer than she could ever have imagined in her darkest nightmares.

She starred down at the blank piece of paper in front of her, the pencil in her hand unmoving. Deep shadows leapt across the page, cast by the shockingly bright light of the lamp on her nightstand. She glanced once more at the clock, chewing her lip. It was almost four in the morning.

After a moment, she sighed tiredly and shook her head. Then she closed the sketchbook, slipped the pencil into the spiral so it wouldn't get lost, and leaned over the side of her bed so that she could put both underneath it.

Where they were safe.

Where no one would find them.

* * *

She was sitting in the kitchen at the island, her head resting on her arms. She'd hardly gotten any sleep.

The others walked in.

Willow and Tara laughed at something Xander said that she hadn't heard. The sound of their laughter was distant and faint. Her mind was elsewhere. She wasn't thinking about her friends, or patrolling, or research, or slaying. No. She was thinking about her dreams.

It took a few moments for her to realize that Xander was talking to her. He repeated her name again, for the fifth time, she suddenly realized, hearing the concern in his voice. She looked up. The three starred back at her, the same expression of worry on each of their faces.

So she sat up, resisted the urge to lay her head back down, and pretended to be interested in their conversation. She didn't even know what they were talking about.

A nod here. A smile there. Forced laughter. Perfect.

After a while, they realized they had to go. Dawn to school, Willow to the Magic Box to help Anya with inventory, and Xander to his job at a construction site. Smile, wave, and assure them you'd be alright. You might even go out for a walk later. Lie to them.

Finally, they left. Finally, the piteous looks they'd sent her out of the corner of their eyes were gone. Finally, the torturous one-sided conversations are over. The horrific charade of being happy and normal is done and over with. Out the door, following on their heels like a lost puppy.

The click of the door shutting sounded throughout the mercifully quiet house. She breathes a sigh of relief, and lets her head drop onto her arms. Once more, she stares across the counter top and into space, her tired thoughts returning to her musings.

A small bit of light returns to her eyes as she focuses on the sound of Xander's car starting. The sound fades into the distance, taking with it the light. She closes her eyes, and allows her mind to drift into the darkness of exhaustion.

The hardest thing was pretending nothing had changed.

* * *

She looked back down at the paper in her lap, and closed her eyes, concentrating, trying to grasp a hold of the vague images that haunted her dreams. She gripped the pencil tighter and, eyes still closed, began to draw a lightly. She had only used a few strokes of the pencil, though, when she frowned, sighed in resigned frustration, and opened her eyes to see what she had drawn.

It was a curved line that could have been the start of anything.

She threw down the pencil and covered her face with her hands, pushing away the tears that threatened.

Why couldn't she remember? Why couldn't she _ever_ remember?

* * *

She didn't even know why she'd let him in.

But the thought of forcing him back out into the deadly sun made her blood run cold and her stomach flutter with anxiety.

So she let him in.

She left him at the bottom of the stairs and went into the living room to turn off the TV. Dawn had left it on, and the sight of the carelessly violent cartoons sickened her. She reached the TV set and was about to push the button to turn it off just as the pictures on the screen grabbed her attention.

She stared.

A red mouse was dragging an apparently unconscious cat with a large bump on its head along the porch of a house by its tail, a tiny shovel slung over its shoulder. It pulled the cat carelessly down the stairs, its already injured head connecting with each step with a loud _thwak_! The red mouse continued to pull the cat. It reached a tree and began to dig a hole in the ground until it couldn't be seen anymore. The red mouse jumped out of the hole, stuck the shovel in the ground and began to roll the cat towards it.

She couldn't take her eyes off the screen.

The cat was dropped into the hole—she didn't want to think too specifically about what it really was—and it twitched. The red mouse peered down at it for a moment, then grabbed its shovel, and started filling in the grave. The dirt piled up quickly, and when the hole was completely filled in, the mouse leaned on the shovel and wiped its head with the back of its hand.

It felt like her breath had caught in her throat.

Then the red dusted its hands off, humming merrily, and made to go back to the house.

She clenched her hands.

But a brown mouse came out of nowhere and ran into the red mouse. It looked embarrassed, and made a few squeaks of apparent apology. The red mouse offered it a hand, and the brown mouse took it, looking slightly uncomfortable.

The brown mouse looked around, then rubbed its head in confusion. It turned back to the red mouse and mimed being a cat; pressing its round ears into triangles and waving its tail. The red mouse grunted and jabbed its thumb at the pile of dirt.

The brown mouse looked between the dirt, the red mouse, and the shovel it was still leaning on. Then its eyes widened. It immediately began jumping about and making frantic noises of distress.

The red mouse watched, unaffected, an eyebrow raised. It waved a dismissing hand at the brown mouse and shrugged.

The brown mouse's face quickly transformed into one of anger, and it strode up to the red mouse and snatched the shovel out from under its hands, causing it to fall to the ground. It got back to its feet with an angry scowl and advanced threateningly on the brown mouse. But the smaller one stood its ground. The red mouse towered over the brown one, and began making angry slightly-less-squeaky squeaking sounds. It pointed to the…pile of dirt, then the brown mouse, then said something else in mouse-ish, then stalked off.

The brown mouse glared after the red one, and, wasting no more time, ran to the pile of dirt and began shoveling.

Her shaking hand found the power button without her even realizing, cutting off the brightly-coloured images before she could see anymore.

She simply starred at the blank TV for a few moments, unable to move, her thoughts sluggishly struggling to form some coherent train of thought, something to defend her against the panicked, irrational fear that was growing inside her.

But then a noise from upstairs jolted her out of her reverie, and she was on her feet in an instant, the cartoon completely forgotten, her eyes wide with a new kind of fear.

Because Spike was in her room.

In a second, she had raced up the stairs. In an instant, she was stepping into her room, her heart pounding. In a moment, she saw him.

But it was already too late.

Because he had her sketchbook.

"NO!" she cried, lunging toward him, her hands reaching for the fragile pages that contained within them everything her dreams had shown her. Every half-image, every little flash of color. Every almost-remembered word. Everything keeping her alive. Her hands closed around the spiral on the side. Her face twisted into a snarl of anger and desperation "GIVE THAT BACK!"

He flinched.

The page he had been holding tore.

The moment seemed to last forever, as she starred, with wide, horrified eyes. It started at the top edge of the page, and moved like a slow, heart stopping bolt of lightning down the middle, and through the person she had almost managed to finish outlining. It was the most she'd ever been able to remember at once, and with such clarity.

And it was gone.

She clutched what remained of the sketchbook to her chest, and sank to her knees, starring at the two halves of paper that had fallen to the ground, her eyes filling with tears.

Spike fell to his knees in front of her, trying to get her to look at him, trying to apologize. But his words were distant. They didn't matter. "I'm sorry… so sorry…we can fix it, I—I'll fix it…just need some tape, okay? …Good as new? Please…please don't cry, I'm so sorry…didn't know… saw on the floor… thought…somewhere safer…please…don't cry…so sorry…fix it…_please, just look at me?_"

And she did. She lifted her gaze from the floor and met his eyes. They looked back, the color of ice and the sky, filled with guilt and sadness and fear. For her.

"Get out."

He left.

She didn't know how long she stayed there, just staring at the pieces of paper. After a while, she was finally able to wrap her head around the fact that, for her, there would be no going back.

And that, perhaps, was the hardest thing in the world.

* * *

**Finished on Saturday, November 03, 2012, 1:08PM**

**This took me 30 days to write o.O**

**PLEASE REVIEW. THANK YOU.**


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